| Title | : | 57 Ways to Screw Up in Grad School: Perverse Professional Lessons for Graduate Students |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 022628090X |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780226280905 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 208 |
| Publication | : | First published July 29, 2015 |
When it comes to a masters or PhD program, most graduate students don’t deliberately set out to fail. Yet, of the nearly 500,000 people who start a graduate program each year, up to half will never complete their degree. Books abound on acing the admissions process, but there is little on what to do once the acceptance letter arrives. Veteran graduate directors Kevin D. Haggerty and Aaron Doyle have set out to demystify the world of advanced education. Taking a wry, frank approach, they explain the common mistakes that can trip up a new graduate student and lay out practical advice about how to avoid the pitfalls. Along the way they relate stories from their decades of mentorship and even share some slip-ups from their own grad experiences.
The litany of foul-ups is organized by theme and covers the grad school experience from beginning to end: selecting the university and program, interacting with advisors and fellow students, balancing personal and scholarly lives, navigating a thesis, and creating a life after academia. Although the tone is engagingly tongue-in-cheek, the lessons are crucial to anyone attending or contemplating grad school. 57 Ways to Screw Up in Grad School allows you to learn from others’ mistakes rather than making them yourself.
57 Ways to Screw Up in Grad School: Perverse Professional Lessons for Graduate Students Reviews
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Generally focused toward English/history/social sciences, but good tips for anyone in grad school. Most of these nuances are picked up quickly once in a graduate program, but I would recommend this book to an undergrad currently applying, to guide expectations.
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This was a good book that makes explicit the unwritten expectations of being in graduate school. I think it's most helpful for someone who's going straight through their degrees. But for someone who has been in the workforce, it's still good to know that the same principles for progressing in that career also apply to academia. Ideally, you stop thinking of yourself as a student and more like a junior colleague or an apprentice. I found the emphasis on reputation resonated with me most - ensuring that from day 1 you start building a strong, trustworthy one. I'd never thought of how informal opinions and information is shared, and how that can affect future prospects. A useful read that's made me more aware and purposeful in the way I approach grad school!
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Excellent book on grad school. Easy to read because each "way" was at most a few pages and sometimes only a page.
This book would be great not only for a grad student, but those considering grad school. The first chapter is devoted to helping the reader think through the decision of applying and going to grad school, the middle chapters are about navigating grad school, and the final one goes into approaching the next step after grad school. -
A relatively quick read filled with advice for current and future graduate students. I would recommend this one for those considering grad school in particular. If you're just beginning to consider graduate school, I'd also recommend reading the Appendix first. It contains a clear breakdown of different types of graduate degrees and their requirements as well as the people who keep the whole system humming.
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This book gives really practical advices about graduate school. Everyone makes mistakes. Wouldn't it be better to avoid most of them? I wish I read it earlier. It helped me to get through the dreary process of thesis writing.
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It’s a good book to read if you’re into pursuing a PhD (not my case), and definitely a must if you’re geared towards social sciences (definitely not my case). Let’s just say I was expecting something else out of it.
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Good advice
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Should have been required reading before I started my PhD
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A great overview on the basics of thriving in grad school that’s relevant to multiple disciplines.
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First of all, this is a reasonably useful book if you are about to enter grad school, and it is well written. I am in my third year, so it was less useful. Many of the points made are things that I had definitely figured out for myself already, or were, to be frank, pretty obvious. The issue for me really was that each graduate program seems to be so unique that writing a full book about "common" pitfalls means I skipped about a third of them because they just didn't apply to me. In the conclusion they break all the ways to screw up into 5 main categories, and I think they would have been better of just presenting it that way from the beginning, and using specific cases as examples. In conclusion, if you are about to enter graduate school this would be a good thing to pick up, but don't be afraid to do some skimming or skip some sections.
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This is not an academic book about doctoral education. It does not present the tropes and paradigms of higher education studies. But for a student - particularly a North American student - considering entering a graduate programme, this is strong book.
While there is some doubtful advice - particularly with regard to interdisciplinarity - the overwhelming majority of information is accurate, timely and important. It is clearly written and features evocative case studies. Recommended. -
The book tells the hard truth about graduate studies in a candid, a little humorous, but accurate way. It's not too stressful to read for a student who has just made the decision of embarking on his/her graduate life, and also sincere enough for him to seriously consider whether he has made the right choices and how he should pursue his future life. It didn't change my decision of going to grad school, but I certainly hope that I'd read this a few years earlier.
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Lots of good humor and good info.
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It's OK. Nothing enlightening, though. I've heard most of these tips before.
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Great book for anyone considering or who has been recently accepted into graduate school. Great tips on the application process as well!
